Lillie+O'Neill

On June 20 or 24, 1908, 36-year-old housekeeper Lillian "Lillie" O'Neill died in Dr. Albert C. Davis's Chicago office from complications of an abortion performed June 20.

Davis was acquitted for reasons not given in the source document. A midwife named Cornelia Meyers was arrested, tried, convicted, and sentenced to Joliet.

Lillie's abortion was typical in that it was [|involved medical professionals, including a physician]. This was especially true in Chicago during the late 19th and early 20th centuries.

Note, please, that with general public health issues such as doctors not using proper aseptic techniques, lack of access to blood transfusions and antibiotics, and overall poor health to begin with, there was likely little difference between the performance of a legal abortion and illegal practice, and the aftercare for either type of abortion was probably equally unlikely to do the woman much, if any, good. For more about abortion and abortion deaths in the first years of the 20th century, see [|Abortion Deaths 1900-1909].

For more on pre-legalization abortion, see [|The Bad Old Days of Abortion]

Sources: [|Homicide in Chicago Interactive Database]



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